I look around myself mentally, thinking of the life I live, and thinking about everything I have. I think of the ways I influence others, and of all the good I do. I consider the ways in which I've hurt people, and some of the things that they have done to me in return. Did I receive the short straw when lives were being handed out?

I'm sitting here at my network server, as I usually tend to do when at home. It's a nice fast computer, and it has a nice fast network that runs off it. I set it all up myself and this computer and its network is my pride and joy. I'm listening to music on my home theater stereo, and my cat is sleeping on my queen-sized bed, which is only three feet to my left. Out in the family room is the entertainment center with yet another very kickass stereo, comfortable couches, a large TV, and my video game console and games. Downstairs you can find my drum kit, the area of the house that we use to hold the occasional jam session, and the hot tub. Out there is my family. Out there, the people I've grown with, learned with, and at times, fought with. Out there, the world lies in wait. Is it waiting for me?

They are all material possessions, places and things that have been associated with too much feeling. I used to come into my room and feel a rush of pure joy, simply from the feelings I have experienced in this room. I was here when I fell in love for the first time; I was here when I lost her. This is where my home is, and when I leave it, a part of me shall die with its loss. I've not seen any of my friends since New Years' Eve, and most days I simply don't care about that. Most days I'm busy trying not to get bored at college. Most days I spend trying not to think about how long it's going to be, and how helpless I am in the meantime.

I'm a full-time college student. Every day I am with the same group of people. Each day, I could go and eat lunch with them. I could talk with them; I could work with them. I don't, though. I feel so disconnected from the people that are always around me. With their constant debauchery and overall lack of care, what would I ever want from them? I feel uncomfortable and isolated when I'm around them, or anyone else for that matter. When am I going to fuck up next?

I live a life of solitude. This is how I want things to be. I was never one to go out to parties, or hang around at the bars or clubs. I often turn down invitations to go out, and I spend all my free time sitting right here in this chair. Does that mean I have no life? Does this make me a big loser? No it doesn't, because unlike someone with no life, or one who is a big loser, I do what I do and live how I live by my own free will. I can go out into public and obtain a great deal of respect from people I've just met, simply because I am that type of person. Still, I don't maintain any form of communication on a regular basis with these individuals.

My phone is ringing again. I answer it, and find that it's not for me. The caller on the phone is never, ever for me. It's always for someone else. This is not a complaint, because I really don't like talking on the phone all that much, it's simply an observation. You see this is merely confirmation of the fact that I really don't have friends that can be considered my true companions. My friends are all up to their eyeballs in school-related work, or work-related work. My friends use e-mail or ICQ to communicate, and my friends hardly ever talk with me. I stopped talking to a friend of eight years in September, because of reasons that had nothing to do with his friendship, but the point is, I've never felt bad about doing that. I have no regrets, and I hold no remorse for him or what we could have had.

I look around myself. I live in a huge house, I own a big fucking fast computer, and all that other shit. To top it all off, I've been getting such high grades in school that even I can't believe it's really happening. When I think about it, I've got everything a person could ever, ever want to have. I know what I want to do with my life, and I know how I intend to do it, so why do I need friends? I don't need friends to use my network, or play my video games, or watch movies on my DVD system in the family room. The people I jam with are actually my parent's friends, not really mine. Only a small handful of individuals have ever been inside the server room and about half of them were my sexual partners at some point over the years. Most of the people who consider me a friend share a hollow friendship with me. It is a relationship based on some insignificant detail or something in my life that truly fascinates them, but holds no meaning to me.

So what is wrong here? Do I miss casual sex? Do I miss going out for meaningless conversation over some form of putrid-tasting beverage? Do I miss going to someone else's residence just to sit around, stuff my face with popcorn, and watch the same fucking movie I could watch on my own time? I don't really know, as a matter of fact. As I shut my eyes for a moment, I hear the wind swirling around the house, as a heavy rain seems to come out of nowhere. Where in the hell did that rain come from anyway? It's early in March, and far too cold for a rain. Looking out my window, I can see the drops of water that should by all rights be tiny ice-balls or snowflakes. I rub my eyes, and find my hands covered in liquid. Now I can see torrents of snow whipping harshly outside, for the rain was nothing but my own tears.

Tonight is a strange night for me. I can hear the thunder, and see the lightning. I walk in the misty Ohio rains now, and I let them soak me to the bone. Walking away from the side of a dark road surrounded by many, many trees, I continue my thoughts. Is it true that I miss the place I am in now? No, but I miss storms that are so beautiful. All that ever happens back home are measly little thunderstorms, if that. Sometimes it doesn't even rain. Other times, it doesn't even snow. I glance up and I can see the lightning branching over the sky as the rain comes down even harder. Why is my imagination so vivid that I can feel the fresh rains covering me, and I can clearly see and hear the lightning and thunder? Here in the woods, as I walk farther from the road, I come upon a clearing. I've found this place so many times in my dreams. I see her there. I walk up to her and gaze down at her small 5' form. This is the woman who caused me a great deal of pain and suffering in the past. I see her in my dreams, and there are times I can hear her evilly laugh at me. I gave her everything, and she took it, and threw me to the wind. I can never talk when I find her here, mind you. I am always caught speechless, but I would do anything to show her the pain she has caused to me.

So I turn away from her, and make my way off into the forest again. The sounds of falling rain surround me. I can hear the rain falling about me, and I am so wet now that it doesn't even matter if I am rained upon anymore. Every time it rains here, I am drawn to return somehow, but this is the first time I've been able to leave the clearing since I started coming two years before. I walk to the edge of the forest, and come to the lip of a canyon. Below, I see the blackness, illuminated momentarily in bright flashes as the lightning continues its relentless dance across the heavens. I turn back, glancing at the forest clearing. Why am I here? Was I not good enough for her? Did my betrayal really have to cause me a year of suffering?

She cost me nothing, for I never suffered a loss. Only once did I journey to Ohio, and there was a reason I never came back. The loss was an emotional one, and it can thus be cast aside. I cried for two hours, a week after she left me for what I had done. The termination of our three-month relationship hailed the beginning of the worst time in my late teen years. I can hear someone come up behind me, and I feel a tapping on my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. I spin around and look down to meet her face with my eyes. Glaring up at me, she laughs again and I see two men come from the shadows of the forest beyond. Each man is carrying a rifle. I look back at her about to ask what is going on, when I notice one of the men take aim at me. I back up slowly, and look at his face. He opens his mouth as if to say something and I see a pair of fangs protruding below his other teeth. With my hands held out in front of me, I continue to back up, trying not to make any rapid movement. Suddenly I fall backwards, tumbling over the cliff and into the ravine, into the darkness.

In this blackness, I find myself. Here is where I live, where this life happens around me. I am Number One. I am the one who runs to nobody, who answers for nothing. I control all he does, and several things the people around him do. I keep his mind in a shroud of darkness, throwing enough random events into him to keep things interesting without him ever finding the truth. I can keep him distracted, or bring his mind to places he's been before. I write his poetry, I rule over his life, and I answer to nobody. I wear the long black coats, and I know what to do to make everyone stare in pure awe as I pass them by. When he finally dies, I am what will be left behind.

For you see, when she pushed him over that ravine, he went so far within himself that I had to take over for him. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep, and he talked to no one. Over the months, he slowly resumed his position, but he would've died if it weren't for me. What are you looking at? He had to move on. She wasn't the right one for him. None of the girls were, but he was too blind to see it. He was also too blind to see that he was devastating another man's life by being with her.

It's been two hours now, but I'm still just sitting here, listening to randomly played songs. The howling winds have died down, but it's still snowing out. Out there, it's empty now. Nobody would be out in this cold weather. It is with that thought that I consider going out for a walk. The fact remains, it's -30 degrees Celsius outside, but at least nobody would disturb me. I'm far too comfortable right here for the time being and thus, I stay.

As I bring fire to the wicks of many a candle, I set that last vision far from my thoughts. Are memories supposed to bring back such pain? Although it was so long ago, have I really gotten over what happened? Or have I been using someone new to keep that deathly intense pain from engulfing me all over again? As the case is now, when I first faced this pain, I was walking alone. Simply put, it is the way of things.

With all that I have, the pain shouldn?t mean as much as it does. This is a flawed philosophy, for since when could anyone define vulnerability to pain through how much shit they own? I enjoy living in this seclusion. Perhaps there has been something lost along the way, and my life is simply an exercise in how much emotional pain I can tolerate before I can take no more. As I continue writing, I can feel that empty sensation right above my divot again.

I recall a time in my life when the pain was all I had. A life of solitude, defined through the pain that it brought. Soon, I became so used to it that dwelling upon self-misfortune became habit. Torture for no better reason than to hurt by my own hand, to make sure I was still capable of feeling. To this day, it is at times the only thing I really have. I don?t smoke, I don?t cut my wrists, and I don?t do crazy stupid things, much, but I have this. Many a night I?ve spent awake, deep in thought. I hate what I?ve become. I despise it for going against what I wished to be.

Slowly, I am destroying myself with this state of mind. My faceless friends have never come to terms with what I cannot become. I don?t define my actions based on theirs. The question remains; what has me so fixated on ultimate control? I know it has been achieved, but it?s been done in the wrong way. So much is controlled that physically, I am colder than a table made of stainless steel, and equally hard.

I have betrayed, I have shattered souls, destroyed true love, and I have devastated others? trust in me. It seems wherever I go, a wake of senseless emotional destruction follows. Fully aware of this, I don?t even blink in remorse as yet another poor soul twists upon itself and fades to black. I simply walk by, in search of my next victim. The life I?ve come to live, merely a series of connected forevers, endlessly merged into one another to the point that I cannot tell where one begins and where another will ever end. Inside I am screaming out for help, but as help comes, offering what it may, it recoils in horror. I?ll never forget her scream as she lay there, dying on the floor before my black leather-covered feet. Standing there I wrung the blood from my pale-skinned hands, only to kneel before her and cry out my apologies, trying to see once-again, the love that once shone in her now-lifeless brown eyes.

In isolation, I drown in guilt created by actions that can never be forgotten. Instead of feeling the bliss of living, or the joys of being alive, I feel hatred and disgust, remembering that which can never be forgiven. When I look in the mirror, I see those emotionless, soul-piercing, hateful eyes staring back at me. I?ve never been able to see the beauty others claim lies in these eyes. Instead, I see what no one else ever has. I see every single hateful, uncaring, unforgivable action I?ve committed in the entirety of this life. I remember it all, with the clarity one should only experience while actually living an event. Without looking away, I begin to relive each one in succession, indeed as if it were the first time all over again.

The cold truth washes over me like a chill that can never be lifted. Not once did I believe I was capable of the destruction I?ve caused. While I?ve tried, I never have been able to run from this. I have never come to terms with the guilt I live, caused by the insurmountable pain and deepest emptiness I?ve created in others. I?ve never wished for an ability to remember these things with such impeccable clarity, but as I stare now, hypnotized by nothing but the visage of my own eyes, I start to shake, feeling the cold, merciless hand of guilt clutching my throat again. I?ve brought destruction upon the truest of loves, shattered the happiest of souls, and condemned innocents to their own personal hells. The sorrow engulfs me anew, as I start to see each and every face of those I?ve hurt in flashes of painful mental imagery. 

This is why, day after day, one may find me here alone. So long as I remain secluded, it will be impossible for anyone else to fall prey to the emotional destructiveness I continually dish out. I stay at home because I do not wish others to share in this pain. I fear that out there, one may try to fill this wretched emptiness within me, but how else would one think all of the others came to meet their fate? Nobody should feel the need to help out. They would be much safer if they just stayed the hell away from me. Nobody else needs to know how irreparably broken I am inside. I cannot allow any more innocents to be bludgeoned to death by wave after wave of remorseless guilt and senseless sorrow. I refuse to risk them being hurt by who I am, and what I have become.

The eastern sky begins to hint of dawn's approach, as I brush the long dark hair from my face once more. While the candles are burning low, as liquid wax slowly extinguishes their many flames, the sun shall be soon to rise, bringing its infernal light to this once-darkened world. All that I've experienced and everything I've ever known has been relived in crystal-clear memories tonight. These nine short years of existence summed up have created nothing but a never-ending fountain of scarring pain within. Gazing at the gradually brightening sky, the burning pain is intensified by a singular longing; what had long ago became my one and only wish. Maybe today will be different from the thousands to come before. Maybe the sun will finally do what it's always been meant to do today. Maybe a light will shine upon my soul today that will cleanse me of the wrongs committed while living the life of remorseless destruction and ceaseless hatred that I've come to accept as the collective total of my existence. Perhaps, as the entirety of my being is incinerated by the sun's harsh light, I shall find peace in eternal death.